WhatsApp's UPI-based payment service is awaiting regulatory approval from Reserve Bank of India (RBI). WhatsApp h earlier said it hopes to roll out full-fledged payment services in India later this year. Once launched, WhatsApp payments will compete with likes of Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe. Facebook Vice-President, Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg termed India as a "huge market" for Facebook and its group companies, WhatsApp and Instagram. Clegg also said Facebook is "keen to make progress" on rolling out WhatsApp payment services in India. 

"We have 400 million WhatsApp users in this country...it's a huge market. As you may kw, we have pilot of one million WhatsApp users in this country who are using WhatsApp Pay, we are keen to make a progress on that...We touched on that," Clegg said while on his trip to India.

WhatsApp launched a test run of WhatsApp Payments over a year ago. Earlier, RBI h clarified that all data related to payments, including those processed abro, must be stored only in India. Also, in case payment processing is done overseas, data should be deleted from systems re and brought back to India within 24 hours, it h stated.

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Meeting with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Pras

Clegg on Thursday met IT Minister Ravi Shankar Pras to raise a few issues including cross-border data flows, information privacy and data sharing between governments. Clegg said governments should eng in data sharing among mselves to ensure security of its citizens, and that such collaboration across jurisdiction is more important than issue of physical location of data, per se.

"One of things that came up (during meeting) was that one of effective ways that governments can cooperate with each or to keep ir citizens safe is to enter into new agreements with each or to share data for security purposes," Clegg told PTI.

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Views on India's data localisation

Expressing his views on India's plans to mandate data localisation and also tighten rules for social media platforms, Clegg said data-sharing across jurisdictions is more important than where that information is located physically.

"It is more important how you share data across jurisdictions than where you physically locate it. If you want to use data particularly to make sure people are kept safe and, in our view, fact that US Congress has allowed CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act which allows for agreements with Governments such as India for speedier and automatic data sharing...that is far more effective way of ensuring data is put to good use," Clegg said.

(With inputs from PTI)